The Mother We Share
by ajunebuga
Summary: A 'songfic'-ish story to Chvrches 'The Mother We Share'. Follows Elsa and Anna's reflection after The Great Thaw.


**The Mother We Share.**

**A/N: This is a songfic that I just simply could not get out of my head. It is inspired by Chvrches 'The Mother We Share'. I kept listening to this song on repeat and seeing different clips from the movie that exactly fit every single line. I've tried to express the montage that I see in my head since I'm not very good at making videos (though if someone is inspired by this story and wants to try I'd love to see one!). The song and movie used as inspirations are not mine. The interpretation is. It could be Elsanna if you squint, but that was not my intention.**

It had been four days since The Great Thaw. Anna and Elsa had been spending their time alternately sleeping, and lounging in Anna's messy bedroom stuffing their faces with chocolate truffles left over from the interrupted Coronation ball. "No sense in wasting good chocolate!" was Anna's rationale.

The sisters were overjoyed to be able to spend so much time together. Each had missed the other terribly. However, over time the acute pain of separation became a more chronic ache. The ache was so much a part of their identities that they had learned to live with it, in order to move on as much as they could.

The girls had spoken briefly and indirectly about their years of separation since the thaw. Anna recounted how rejected and lonely she felt. Confused and alone, she turned to the suits of armour and paintings in the portrait gallery for companionship.

Elsa, despite her recent revelations on the power of love, predictably found it harder to open up, to verbalize the sheer vastness of the desolation her spirit had endured. The feeling of it stretching out before her into eternity.

In her heart of hearts she knew that there was nothing that could drive her and Anna apart. They had faced more in the past week than most sisters would face in a lifetime, and they had come out not only on top, but ahead of where they'd started.

Still, for the girl who had often spent days curled into the corner of her room, afraid to move, to breathe, to think, lest she unwittingly unleash the frigid manifestation of her inner turmoil, who had lived in fear for 13 long years, it was still hard to 'let it go'.

The elephant in the room remained the decision of their parents to keep them apart.

Chins and fingers lightly coated with a chocolate sheen, both girls curled into the duvet and watched the aurora dance outside the dormer window. Unbeknownst to each, their thoughts were once again in sync, reflecting on how their upbringing had shaped their recent actions.\

Elsa sighed, a slight fog momentarily visable as the cold expulsion of air met the warm interior of the chamber. She had so much that she wished she could say, could share. She just simply didn't know where to start.

She began to hum quietly under her breath. She used to adore singing when she was young, had grown up singing lullaby to her sister, and making boring tasks seem enticing by describing them in a melody. However, after 'the incident', she had been so afraid to draw attention to herself in any way, that she had stopped completely. She had a large and powerful voice, contained in her dainty frame. Sometimes she wondered if everything that was inside her wasn't just a little too loud, a little too showy, a little too...different. And so she over compensated by reigning it all in, concealing. Putting on the act of a perfect daughter, perfect monarch. But eventually the power had burst free. Her worst fears had been realized...and she had survived. Clearly, she smirked to herself, the years of holding it in had been for nothing, and her nightmares had almost come true. But, they hadn't. In the end, letting loose her power and embracing her uniqueness had been the secret to their freedom. With this in mind, she attempted to put words to her feelings, knowing that they would only come so close to expressing what she truly felt. But feeling empowered and relaxed enough to at least try.

Anna relaxed with the distantly familiar rich tones of her sister's voice in her ears. She still couldn't decide if she was more hurt and angry at herself for never figuring out Elsa's secret until it was almost too late. At Elsa, for not reaching out to her sooner, or, and she found it almost blasphemous to think it, at her parent's for keeping each girl from their greatest source of joy and comfort.

She startled a bit when the melodious humming began to take shape into words, and a sweetly melancholic verse spilled from her sister's lips.

{a slowed-down, acoustic version – somewhat like Quanah version from YouTube – but with Idina and Kristen! ;-)}

_**Never took your side.**_

_**Never cursed your name.**_

_**I kept my lips shut tight,**_

_**Until you go.**_

Elsa pictured all the times she'd told Anna to simply 'go away', not wanting to betray her parents orders, and fearing that she may hurt her sister once again. Knowing that each time she denied her sister, a small part of each of them died.

Still, she never resented her sister for the exile imposed on her by her parents. She didn't even really blame her parents for this decision. They were acting out of fear. Fear born from love. Actions that were so ingrained in her that she continued a form of exile even after their passing. Knowing that she had not been able to earn back their trust and faith n her to control her powers, and therefore not able to earn her own trust and confidence back in her own abilities either.

_**We've come as far**_

_**As we're ever gonna get.**_

_**Until you realize**_

_**That you should go.**_

She remembered the joy she had felt standing next to her sister on the podium after the church service. The small sting of rejection when Anna had shuffled slightly away from her to put more distance between them after being placed side-by-side by a member of court, then the frisson of relief when they had shared their first mufti-sentence conversation in over a decade. Chocolate once again breaking down the barrier.

She remembered the heartbreak and resolute way she had told Anna to 'go' after refusing to bless her marriage. She had realized after seeing Anna in her element surrounded by gaiety and exuberance that while she herself had been raised from birth to always put her own needs and feelings last. To shoulder the burdens of a nation and never let her true feelings show – even more so when it became obvious she would have to work ten times as hard as the average heir – that this did not have to be Anna's lot in life. She could save her sister and set her free, even if it meant having to reject her to do so. Her sister's happiness would always come before her own.

Her father had recited the mantra 'Conceal, don't feel, don't let it show' as almost a kind of lullaby for as long as she could remember. Pre-dating the first signs of her power at age four. She was taught to always hide her smiles behind a dainty hand, to obey orders, to have respect, and to realize that she must always live her life for others. Duty and honour above all else.

_**I'm in misery where you can seem**_

_**As old as your omens**_

She had felt bound, first by the weight of the expectations of her parents and an entire nation, and then more so by the realization that the prophecy of a ruler with a frozen heart was coming true in her. The omens were all there, and could no longer be ignored. Even Grand Pabbie was concerned.

_**And the mother we share will never keep**_

_**Your proud head from falling**_

She had never doubted that her parents loved her. Loved them both. But they had also been raised in royal households. Raised where perception could be more valuable than reality. Where the tiniest mistakes could easily cause the downfall of an entire kingdom.

She had felt loved, but never felt that they were proud of her.

_**The way is long but you can make it**_

_**Easy on me**_

She had taken the coward's route by not seeking Anna out after their parents' accident, but she honestly felt at the time that it was the best for both of then.

It was easier just to not see Anna, than to pretend she felt nothing.

Than to risk feeling, and potentially hurting her again.

_**And the mother we share will never keep **_

_**Our cold hearts from calling**_

However then, as now, she realized that their hearts had called to each other. Called through the thick oaken door, and out across a huge chasm of fear.

_**In the dark of night, **_

_**I'm the only one here**_

When she spent the first night alone in her ice palace she was filled with an expansive sense of hopelessness. The endless days and nights of her solitary existence had done nothing to prepare her for the deafening volume of the echoing silence.

_**And I will cover you, until you go.**_

She prayed that the kingdom had not condemned Anna along with her. But even if they had, she knew that no one could ignore the true light in the heart of the princess, and that she would be forgiven.

Elsa almost wished she'd had the courage to leave earlier, to run away and save Anna and her parents the years of concurrent isolation.

Had she merely taken the step to remove herself, the root of the problem, Anna could have enjoyed a regular childhood full of balls, suitors, friends and laughter.

With a heavy heart, she would stay away. It was what Anna deserved. And it was what she deserved as well for her crimes. She had not been the good girl she was supposed to be.

_**And if I told the truth**_

_**I will always be free**_

_**And keep a prize with me,**_

_**Until you go**_

She sang these notes with a lilting sense of wonder. In the end, love, the love of her sister, but more importantly, to forgive and to love herself, had set her free. Had freed the kingdom from eternal winter.

By not hiding her feelings, or by association, her powers, Elsa had begun to turn a 'curse' into a 'gift'.

This time it was Anna's sweet, clear voice that picked up the refrain.

_**I'm in misery where you can seem**_

_**As old as your omens**_

She had always felt proud to have Elsa as her big sister, but as they grew, it had seemed that Elsa had grown much more rapidly, until she seemed to outgrow Anna altogether.

Elsa had always been the 'good girl', the heir to Anna's spare. Anna loved her dearly, and looked up to her more than Elsa could ever know. But she missed her sister and their carefree youthful games.

_**And the mother we share will never keep **_

_**Your proud head from falling**_

The odd time she happened to pass Elsa's door while she was receiving tutelage from either of their parents or from one of their hired tutors she always stopped to listen. It was so rare to hear any noise from Elsa's room at all that it always froze her in her tracks.

Looking back she realized that the tones of voice were usually either disappointment or exasperation that bordered on anger. Her father was not infrequently heard to exclaim 'Elsa! What have you done!" upon entering the eldest's room. Anna was always curious, she didn't know that Elsa had possessed the ability to do anything wrong at all. Let alone on such an apparently consistent basis.

However, the few times she saw her sister, even right after she had just endured a five-minute dressing-down in the name of education, her sister never lost her poise.

Anna scoffed when she realized that what she had envied as pride was really fear and self-loathing. It was no wonder that Elsa had barely any self-confidence left. Her sister truly was brave, Anna feared she would have given up long ago if the roles had been reversed.

_**The way is long but you can make it**_

_**Easy on me.**_

_**And the mother we share will never keep **_

_**Our cold hearts from calling.**_

She could honestly say that she had never once given up completely on her sister.

"Do you want to build a snowman?", she had asked, every Tuesday for 13 long years, wishing that just once Elsa would answer her heart's call and give her the simple and easy answer of 'yes'. Even when faced with evidence and popular opinion to the contrary, Anna knew that Elsa would never intentionally hurt her. That deep down, her seemingly frozen heart was full of love.

_**Until the night falls**_

_**We're the only ones left,**_

Elsa sang softly, tears in her voice picturing the bleak walk across the fjord. Hearing her sister's ghostly voice calling to her after Hans had cleaved her world in two with news of her death.

_**I bet you even know**_

_**Where we could go.**_

Anna took over, a small, sad smile tugging at her lips. Elsa had always been the smart one. The studious one. Anna had got through the last week by continually thinking to herself 'Think like Elsa!", though she found it hard to believe that she even knew how to do so any more.

_**And when it all fucks up**_

_**You put your head in my hands.**_

_**It's a souvenir**_

_**For when you go.**_

Elsa took the song back over, tears openly running down her face now. Shocking Anna to realize the depth of her emotions by her never-used curse word. A crack in her facade. Without saying it, both girls knew each was picturing the moment Anna froze. Her last act of selfless bravery to save the one she loved the most.

_**I'm in misery **_

_**Where you can seem**_

_**As old as your omens.**_

_**And the mother we share will never keep,**_

_**Your proud head from falling.**_

_**The way is long but you can make it**_

_**Easy on me.**_

_**And the mother we share will never keep**_

_**Our cold hearts from calling.**_

Both girls allowed their voices to join and blend together. Their misery melting away with the catharsis of their words. The strength that could only come from uniting as a team.

They had shown so much pride, bravery and trust in each other in situations where one might expect the opposite, and together had helped to forge a brighter future.

Their parents may have done some wrongs, but they had instilled in them a true bond of sisterhood. Their hearts would always call for each other, until they could unite in the warmth of love.

~*~Fin~*~

**Chvrches – The Mother We Share Lyrics**

Never took your side, never cursed your name I keep my lips shut tight, until you go-o-oh

We've come as far, as we're ever gonna get Until you realize, that you should go-o-oh

I'm in misery where you can seem as old as your omens

And the mother we share will never keep your proud head from falling

The way is long but you can make it easy on me And the mother we share will never keep our cold hearts from calling

In the dead of night, I'm the only one here And I will cover you, until you go-o-oh

Cause if I told the truth, I will always be free And keep a prize with me, until you go-o-oh

I'm in misery where you can seem as old as your omens

And the mother we share will never keep your proud head from falling

The way is long but you can make it easy on me And the mother we share will never keep our cold hearts from calling

Until the night falls We're the only ones left I bet you even know, where we could go-o-oh

And when it all fucks up, you put your head in my hands It's a souvenir for when you go-o-oh

I'm in misery where you can seem as old as your omens

And the mother we share will never keep your proud head from falling The way is long but you can make it easy on me And the mother we share will never keep our cold hearts from calling.


End file.
